Are Americans nastier, meaner, more evil, more depraved, more eager to destroy innocence and happiness of others up to and including the taking of life for their own gain or sexual amusement than they were 50 years ago? A century ago?

I think so. And I don’t like it one bit.

The latest incident is the miraculous return of Jaycee Lee Dugard after 18 years. She was just 11 when she was kidnapped and enslaved. It causes the mind to rage.

Where does this slime come from? And how can we stop it?

When I was a kid, it seemed the only danger we faced, other than from the switch firmly in mom’s grip, was from ourselves: falling out of trees, swinging Tarzan-like across ravines, playing with fireworks (the real thing and legal, too, none of the namby-pamby safe and sane stuff), getting beaned by a baseball, digging tunnels that had the propensity to cave in when you were inside, Halloweening in the days before they thought up treat. Back then it was just trick.

Phillip Garrido, a registered sex offender on parole for sexual assault in Nevada, was wearing a global positioning system device Wednesday when he was brought in for questioning about being with two children on the UC Berkeley campus the day before. That’s when he confessed to the kidnapping of Jaycee, almost two decades earlier.

He stole her childhood and ruined her adult life by fathering two little girls by her when she was his captive. Experience and research have shown that captors wield insidious power over their prisoners. A good example is newspaper heiressPatty Hearst, who was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She helped her captors rob a bank. Such victims are likely to bond with their captors in a condition like the Stockholm syndrome, which gets its name from an experiment in Sweden, where the captives became sympathetic and took the side of their guards.

Some folks seem to think I’m a softy because I believe in helping people less fortunate. For example, abused children, children forced into prostitution, children cheated out of an education by a lousy home-life and inadequate schools, the poor who can’t get decent health care for themselves and their families. Yeah, I’m a softy. But the people on the other side show their “toughness” by depriving children and their poverty-level parents of decent health care. Like taking candy from a baby. Tough guys, wouldn’t you say?

And I’m ashamed of many of my fellow old-timers for buying into the rumors and lies about Medicare from the so-called toughies, the teabaggers and some right-wing congressmen, who also should be ashamed of themselves.

Greed is ugly and it’s one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Yes, I’m a softy. I believe in the death penalty. The major thing wrong with it is that it takes too long to carry out. By the time the execution order comes down, the idiots on Death Row have forgotten why they are there. I went to high school with a kid who was charged with first-degree murder when he was 16. He was convicted and sentenced to die by the time he was 17 and executed shortly after he turned 18. That’s the way the system worked 60-some years ago, only I’m pretty sure he would not have been executed today. At the most, it would be second-degree murder. He would have been out in a few years. And he’d be collecting Social Security and Medicare just like I am. I didn’t much care for him before he got in trouble. He was handsome, arrogant and cocky. He acted like he was the smartest kid in school and he likely was. The teachers loved him.

Yes, I’m a softy. I believe there should be one strike for child molesters. In my estimation, the lowest form of life. I’ve read in the past that they are the most likely to do it again, although, I’m having trouble nailing down the statistics. I wouldn’t give them a second chance. They would most likely use it to destroy the life of another little kid. Instead, I would put them in a compound out in the desert. There would be no guards inside but plenty on the outside to make sure no one got out. The inmates would have to handle their own internal security. They are alike and deserve each other. They would have plenty of water for drinking and bathing and would be fed those military rations known as MREs or meals ready to eat, which I hear are a lot better than the C-rations we got in Korea. It would be an interesting experiment. Maybe we could try it on gangbangers.

Yes, I’m a softy. I believe we should have a draft so that the military we field in our ever more frequent wars will be truly representative of America.

Returning to my question about how to stop this crime: My compound in the desert would be a big help. It doesn’t look like those GPS devices do much good. Garrido was wearing one and it didn’t stop him.

So was Reginald Edward Christopher, a local man. Christopher is charged with lewd acts with a child under 14, oral copulation, kidnapping for purpose of a lewd act and pimping a child. Remember Baby Face 13.

The Riverside man is awaiting trial in West Valley Superior Court in Rancho Cucamonga. He is being held in the West Valley Detention Center. Thursday was his 46th birthday.

Christopher was arrested on Oct. 23, 2008, by the Montclair police in a prostitution sting after he dropped off Baby Face 13, police reports say.

According to numerous investigation reports and testimony at a preliminary hearing, Christopher was on parole from state prison. He was required to wear a GPS device and register as a sex offender. He spent nights between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. living in his Cadillac in a park and ride in Riverside, because his father lived too near a school. He stayed there so parole officers would know he was abiding by terms of his release, he told police. Except that no one ever checked to see if he was alone. He admitted that he kept Baby Face 13 in the car with him but denied that he knew she was a minor.

GPS devices were of no help for Jaycee Lee Dugard or Baby Face 13. It’s not the devices’ fault. They were doing their job. Maybe we need to figure out a better way to monitor them.